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“I doubt she’d want anything to do with me after I cut her off all those months ago.”
“She will,” I swore. “She is Hazel, after all ... she loves unconditionally.”
Jean nodded once before her stare moved to Big Paw. “Please send Holly my well-wishes. I’m sorry for what she’s going through, and I’m sorry that you are struggling too.”
As Big Paw and I walked outside, I asked him the one question that had been sitting in my head all this time. “Do you blame yourself for what happened to her? As if her living with you was the cause of her meeting Charlie?”
“Every single day.”
“And that’s why you wanted to give Hazel the job all those months ago?”
He nodded. “Just looking for a little bit of redemption.”
“Trust me, Big Paw. You’ve been redeemed.”
The moment we made it back to Eres, I told Hazel what the plan was going to be. Even though she was hesitant, there was a splash of hope in her eyes.
I wished I could’ve said there was some super-blockbuster-movie moment that happened when Big Paw and I set Charlie up, but there wasn’t. He was caught at one of his drop-off locations, and he was arrested once more. This time, it would stick, because he no longer had Jean to take the rap for him. Plus, he’d been in and out of prison so much that there was no way he’d be able to walk away clean.
When I got the word from Big Paw that Charlie was in handcuffs, I headed to the house to see Hazel. When I got there, she was already in bed, and I woke her up from her slumber.
“Hey,” she whispered, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “What’s going on?”
“It’s over.”
Those were the only words I said, and they were enough to get her to sit up in bed. “It’s over? Really? They got Charlie?”
“Yes, and he’s not getting out anytime soon. Garrett even said he’d testify against him in court. It’s really over, Haze. It’s over.”
She released the biggest sigh of relief and fell into my arms. “It’s over,” she whispered.
That night I made love to my love, and everything felt right.
41
IAN
“That’s perfect, perfect, perfect!” Hazel clapped her hands together as she sat in the barn house with the band and me, helping shape up the lyrics to a few of the tracks we’d been creating.
We’d been working day and night, trying to pull this album out of our ass, and as the days moved by, it was appearing more and more unlikely.
Lately, all of our phones had blown up with dozens of text messages from Max, ordering us to return as quickly as possible to get the album up and running with Warren Lee’s tracks.
“Ignore him,” Eric told me. “Max Fucking Rider will be okay for a while. Our biggest concern right now is our music, not him.”
I thanked him for reminding me what was important.
“I think they are beautiful,” Hazel said, grinning ear to ear. She’d been nothing but an asset to the songs, taking my vision and making it soar. We worked together so effortlessly, and I was glad to get back to the basics of the music. It was beginning to feel like fun again.
Leah had been attending our rehearsals with Hazel, and I was thankful that she’d become such a big part of Hazel’s life. Hazel needed a friend in town, and I knew Leah was a loyal one. Watching them grow closer each day was the best damn thing to see.
“Not to make your egos bigger than they already are, but that was beyond amazing,” Leah said. “And believe me, it kills me to give my brother a compliment, but it was magical.”
“I agree with Hazel. That was amazing!” Grams exclaimed, sitting in a chair beside Big Paw. Since we weren’t able to perform or post anything about the new music, the only people we could share the tracks with were people we could really trust.
“I think that you really tapped into—” Grams’s words trailed off as she stood from her chair. Her hand fell to her chest, and she took in deep inhalations. Everything felt as if it were moving in slow motion from that point on. I dropped the microphone from my grip as Grams’s legs began to buckle. Big Paw flew up from his seat, Hazel shot toward her, and the bandmates dashed too.
But it was too late. Grams hit the ground with a hard thump, and in an instant, I’d forgotten how to breathe.
